Verizon has five secret data plans you can only get if you know about them

Verizon Wireless (VZ) killed its previous data plan offerings in late June and replaced them with a series of “Share Everything” plans, which give smartphone users unlimited voice minutes and text messages alongside a single bucket of data that can be shared between as many as 10 different phones, tablets and laptop computers. The nation’s top carrier publicizes six data tiers for its new plans, ranging from a base price of $50 a month for 1GB to $100 a month for 10GB. The plans certainly stand to cost some subscribers more money while benefitting others who are heavy users, but what about those of us who use well over 10GB of mobile data across all our devices?

For the heaviest of heavy users, Verizon on Tuesday confirmed to ComputerWorld that it has five additional unpublicized tiers available for Share Everything users: 12GB for $110 a month, 14GB for $120 a month, 16GB for $130 a month, 18GB for $140 a month and 20GB for $150 a month. As with the lower six tiers, each device added to the plans will cost an additional $10 per tablet, $20 per Jetpack/USB dongle/notebook, $30 per basic phone or $40 per smartphone each month.

AT&T announced earlier this week that its own shared data plans will become available starting on August 23rd, ranging from a base price of $40 per month for 1GB of data to $200 per month for 20GB, plus between $10 and $45 per device added to the plan. AT&T will continue to offer its standard data plans alongside the new “Mobile Share” plans, which is not the case at Verizon.